2076:
Walden 2316,
the country formerly known as “the United States”, is ruled by Supreme Behavior Analyst Robert O'Rourke. You peform a digital ordering behavior to mand a Domino’s pizza through the Metaverse on a Wednesday night. Uh oh behavior for decrease! It’s flagged for review by the Ministry of Behavior Intervention, who review the graphic data displays and observe that your “pizza ordering” behavior has regressed to baseline. More concerning, the biometric data collected by your Amazon Alexa reports that you have been inching toward a BMI of 30. Uh oh!! The Ministry dispatches the Worcester Behavioral Intervention Unit to your home. Time is of the essence. They kick down the door upon arrival. “Implement punishment procedure!” one mands. As he drives the cattle prod into your writhing body, another tacts, “I find this to be extremely reinforcing!” Everybody repeatedly puts their hands together with sufficient force to generate a sound of ~130dBa for a duration of thirty seconds (“clapping” as it was once described in the notoriously imprecise pre-Skinner vernacular). As they perform an exiting the building behavior, one emits the following vocal behavior, “Based on your stated goals on your SVQ ten years ago, this intervention has high social validity. The Ministry will develop a new schedule of reinforcement.” Months later, the Ministry employee responsible for your case will engage in a smiling behavior (operationally defined as the corners of the mouth curling in an upward direction) lasting approximately five seconds as he views a graphic data display indicating that your “pizza ordering” behavior has undergone extinction and your biometric data is regressing toward the mean.
The following night, Supreme Behavior Analyst Robert O'Rourke appears on the television to behave verbally and tact about “the State of the Union”. He rigorously and objectively presents graphic data displays from a meta analysis of 100 million single subject designs (the entire US population) to reinforce the verbal community and show that its behaviors for decrease are undergoing extinction.
Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stands up and emits the tact, “But there’s no control group!”
Supreme Behavior Analyst O'Rourke emits the following vocal behavior consisting of different mands and tacts in response, “This vocal behavior you have just emitted was modeled for you by Russian disinformation. It relies on formerly mainstream research methods for private events that are neither observable nor measurable. Your behavior is not reinforcing to believers of the immortal natural science of Skinnerian behavior analysis. This is a behavior for decrease, and I shall initiate punishment procedure.”
Robert begins the “cattle prodding” behavior. The entire congress stands up and repeatedly puts their hands together with sufficient force to generate a sound of ~130dBa for a duration of twenty minutes as AOC emits a loud vocalization. This is very reinforcing for them.
Watching this sequence of behavioral contingencies unfold through your Meta VR headset, you also engage in the “clapping behavior”. You experience the private event (i.e., “””thought”””), “I would be extremely reinforced by Supreme Behavior Analyst Robert personally implementing my punishment procedure.” Another private event occurs: “I wish this private event was observable and measurable by the Ministry.” Fortunately, with Elon Musk’s neura-link coming onto the market, it soon will be.
Before engaging in the sleeping behavior at a socially valid time, you engage in a listening behavior to the Hamilton soundtrack. You emit the echoic, “I want to be in the room where it happens.” Though your private events and verbal behavior tact with 100% accuracy that God doesn’t exist, a private event occurs: “Thank God for the marvelous American experiment.”
